UKRAINE-EU-FOREIGN-MINISTRY

Kyiv, January 29 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Kyiv has called on its European partners to refrain from making political assessments of criminal cases involving representatives of the Ukrainian opposition, Acting Director of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s Information Policy Department Yevhen Perebyinis has said.

“We were surprised to learn that members of the European Parliament (Elmar Brok), obviously, managed to learn the details of the case [against opposition representatives] earlier than defense lawyers and assessed it earlier than Ukrainian courts,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday.

He noted that in any criminal case a final decision was made by the court.

“We are calling on our partners to refrain from political assessments and act within the generally accepted European norms and principles of international law,” Perebyinis said.

The Foreign Ministry also said that, obviously, while speaking about restrictions on the entry of certain Ukrainian officials into the EU, Brok voiced his own opinion and assessment of the activity of the leadership of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.

As reported, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs Brok told Deutsche Welle on January 28 that Ukrainian First Deputy Prosecutor General Renat Kuzmin could be barred from entering the European Union in connection with charges brought against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulai Tymoshenko, who is suspected of ordering the murder of businessman and lawmaker Yevhen Scherban in 1996.